Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

For those who have asked, no, I'm not particularly interested in Andrew Breitbart's latest, deceptively-edited video scam campaign which, shamefully, the Obama Administration and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack fell for before bothering to view the whole video.

Clearly, the entirety of the corporate MSM has yet to fully learn the lesson. (e.g., see this piece on Washington Post's ombudsman falling for Fox/Breitbart's ridiculous "New Black Panther Party" non-scandal, non-story over the weekend and WaPo'sembarrassing coverage of the Sherrod incident tonight --- even after the hoax has been exposed --- where they waited until the 15th graf(!) to note the video was deceptively edited!) Obviously, the Obama Administration hasn't learned its lesson at all, as witnessed by the firing of Shirley Sherrod without any due diligence.

But it's nice to see that, this time, it took many in the media just 24 hours or so before catching on to Breitbart's hoax...

Contrast that to the more than six months it took most of them to catch on to the ACORN "Pimp" Hoax. And even now, many of them still buy into that fake story and continue to report on it completely inaccurately.

Now, if any of them can bother to actually fact-check these phony wingnut stories before reporting them at all --- and keep from ruining even more people's lives and careers needlessly in the bargain --- maybe we'd be somewhere. But Rome wasn't built in a day, and the self-loathing failure of the corporate MSM and the Democrats who cower in fear of the Right along with them, didn't get that way over night either.

So I guess it'll take all of them some time to get over their years of abused spouse syndrome. But maybe --- just maybe --- this time they've learned a lesson about the partisan cretins and liars that they cover as if they were legitimate. Or maybe they haven't. We'll see. I suspect much more of this garbage between here and November, at the very least.

For those who do care about this story, or have no idea what I'm talking about, Rachel Slajda has all you can eat at TPM today. If you prefer watching over reading, Chris Matthews did a decent job of summing much of it up earlier this evening and CNN's Rick Sanchez is due credit for his coverage as well. Both of those videos are below. [UPDATE: So is Maddow's now, probably best of the lot, as usual.]

I'm just glad someone else bothered to debunk this garbage this time around, so I didn't have to. For now, anyway. I'm sorry I had to lend even this many words to it.

Oh, and President Obama: Do the right thing, for once, and beg Shirley Sherrod to take her old job back with your greatest apologies.

* * *

Mathews segment on MSNBC follows below...

Sanchez' segment on CNN, including an interview with the family of the farmer from Sherrod's deceptively edited story, folows below...

* * *

UPDATE: As usual, the best coverage in the corporate MSM on Breitbart scams comes from Maddow, who also gets her criticism of the Obama Administration right on the money as well...

Dear Brad,
Rachel did a great extended piece on this tonight and had on Ben Jealous from the NAACP who fully copped to being snookered and the need to be more discerning in the future. And he seemed like a person who actually may act on that thought.

Also saw that Glenn Beck said that maybe Sherrod should be given her job back.

And I then had the very pleasant thought that THIS time, as fucked up as this whole thing is again, which is plenty, that the truth coming out so quickly and so strongly from so many different angles is BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!All that tireless work, for the most part only acknowledged by your loyal elven followers, all that comprehensive reporting, all your tireless and thankless bugging of the New York Times to get the fucking thing right for cryin'out loud, and article after article over months and months and months, all the transcripts read and interpreted, all that resolute refusal that let the fucking thing go cuz it was just plain WRONG and UNTRUE!!---IT FINALLY HAD A FUCKING EFFECT!!!!!!!THAT WAS YOU, DUDE!!!!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a real and precious dude. Making a difference.

Here is another classic case of a "moment" where Obama could define himself as STANDING for something or standing for NOTHING.

If, as suggested above, he does "the right thing" and gives Sherrod her job back (begs her to take it) that would be good. Normally, nothing special, but in this case, a major step.

If, as Rahm suggests, he just tries to "wait it out," knowing that the media will move on to the next crisis/event/celebrity and Sherrod will be forgotten, and Obama's treachery with it, then that too will define exactly what this administration is about. It will be forever defined as "just a bit less crappy than Cheney/Bush."

The 2 minute 36 second extract is from a 4 minute 40 second section of the speech where Shirley Sherrod is explaining how she came to realize that the problem was discrimination against poor people rather than discrimination against blacks. Initially she had not helped the white farmer as much as she could have instead referring him to a white lawyer on the assumption that his own would help him. But his own did not help him, the white lawyer turned out to be lazy and ineffective and the county engaged in some skullduggery that prevented the farmer using chapter 12 bankruptcy. The case came back to Shirley Sherrod and from it she came to realize that poor whites had the same problems as poor blacks. By leaving out the completion of Sherrods argument the editor creates a section that really does make Shirley Sherrod appear racist.

The full speech is 43 minutes 15 seconds long, but the portion of relevance is 4 minutes and 40 seconds starting 16 minutes and 40 seconds in. By cutting it short the malevolent editor has managed to make it appear that Sharrod was saying something very different to what she was in fact saying. She was saying that she used to be prejudiced in thinking that all white people benefited from white privilege, but that this incident taught her that poor white people are treated by the system every bit as badly as poor blacks. By cutting out the end part of her story, the editor makes it look as if she is crowing over her having power to help or not help a white man.

My only thought Brad was wouldn't this be a good launching point to re-introdude the buried ACORN retraction.
As i was listening to Scarborough this AM talk of the knee-jerk response of this administration it was apparent he of course 'forgot' congresses reaction to the ACORN story. Also, another chance to cast dispersions on Breitbart's lack of integrity and hopefully shut him up for awhile.
Sadly, this will likely be just the beginning of what will probably be the ugliest campaign cycle we have ever seen thanks to Citizens United.

The Lying Right Wing scored bigtime with ACORN, Van Jones and now Shirley Sherrod...

I think Truth and Justice needs to change it's lineup...the Truth and Justice QB in the Whitehouse seems to be timid in the face on The Lying Right Wing's blitz...Truth and Justice needs a better lineup...these guys are too cowed by The Lying Right Wing.

She reveals how the Faux "News" Network falsely claimed that Shirley Sherrod was caught on tape boasting about abusing her position at the Department of Agriculture to deny benefits to white farmers. Sean Hannity, for example, said "she was caught on tape appearing to tell an audience that she had used her position to discriminate against white farmers."

Bill O'Reilly demanded her resignation.

Maddow revealed that Sherrod was speaking about an event that occurred in the 1980s--long before she joined the Obama Dept. of Agriculture; that, contrary to representations on the Faux "News" network, she was not boasting about a racist denial of benefits to white farmers but was speaking about her initial reaction. What Breitbart and friends left out was that Sherrod went on to explain that her real obligation was to help the poor. She in fact saved the white farmer, who said that “in no way in the world” could she be described as a racist.

Critically, Maddow covered Obama’s cowardly surrender on Van Jones, ACORN and now Shirley Sherrod “before the story can even make it into the mainstream media.” (Maddow left off the pre-election Obama in which he threw Rev. Wright under the bus). Maddow said the administration was “feeding a dog at the table thereby encouraging that dog to beg at the table."

Maddow went on to note that Fox is not a "news" network. To the contrary, as Robert Greenwald so aptly demonstrated in "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," Fox is simply the propaganda arm of the billionaire-funded hard right.

If we had any real enforcement of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, Fox would have lost its license to broadcast years ago for failing to serve the public interest, which is a condition of its license to broadcast.

I heard on Bill Press this morning that if offered Ms. Sherrod is considering not accepting her job back...frankly today I'm ashamed of the Whitehouse and it's chief executive...it's like the right wing is still calling the tune that Obama dances to.

bluehawk,
i too am upset with the wh for buying into these lies without bothering to hear her side of the story but reading my local paper and seeing the brainwashing that fox news has accomplished,i do understand why the wh just doesnt want to deal with one more made up story

however what i was wanting to know more about(i screwed up the paste i guess) was the election official being found burned to death in the trunk of his car in monroe tn last sat night...he had only been on election board since april

Time for the ending of Omerta amongst the lamestream media. Fool me once etc. In their case they never learn ala the comment from Earnest A. Canning about Pete Seeger's song "Where have all the flowers gone?" When will they ever learn? Answer after the place down below freezes solid. To the right wing it is easier than taking candy from an infant. If something works why change to something else.

Brad, your humility. Why didn't you let everyone know that VR wrote a letter two weeks ago to the Maryland AG asking for Breitbart's indictment for violating ACORN's privacy rights? http://www.velvetrevolut...GANSLER-COATS_OKEEFE.pdf And why didn't you tell us that VR sent a press release out about this today? http://www.prnewswire.co...es-privacy-98911904.html Come on Brad, quit holding back. We have a right to know! You should be given an award for getting this right months ago and exposing Breitbart as simply a not so bright common criminal.

Hitler had a name for this --- the Big Lie technique. Tell a lie big enough, loud enough, and often enough and some people will begin to assume that it must be true, or at least that "where there's smoke there's fire."

Thanks Ernest, i was speaking generally about the lack of coverage of what looks like the missed bigger story. How thru editing, the same right wing blogger had first duped congress and then the administration. A congressional Dem with stones ought to skewer Breitbart.